Actresses need to be pickier than men about with whom they work if they want to survive in the movie industry, suggests a new study.

"My research indicates that women in the film industry suffer a lack of access to future career opportunities when they tend to work with people who have collaborated frequently in the past," said Mark Lutter, lead author of the study and head of the "Transnational Diffusion of Innovation" Research Group at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies (MPIfG) in Germany.

People whose sexual identities changed toward same-sex attraction in early adulthood reported more symptoms of depression in a nationwide survey than those whose sexual orientations did not change or changed in the opposite direction, according to a new study by a University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) sociologist.

For older adults, having more or closer family members in one’s social network decreases his or her likelihood of death, but having a larger or closer group of friends does not, finds a new study that was presented at the 111th Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association (ASA).

Squatters who illegally occupy vacant homes or buildings are not always contributing to apathy or social disorder, says a new University of Michigan study that was presented at the 111th Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association (ASA).

It can actually be a good situation for a neighborhood to have these individuals move into abandoned homes, lessening the chance of them becoming sites for drug users or burned by arsonists, the study indicates.

Death and mourning were largely considered private matters in the 20th century, with the public remembrances common in previous eras replaced by intimate gatherings behind closed doors in funeral parlors and family homes.

But social media is redefining how people grieve, and Twitter in particular — with its ephemeral mix of rapid-fire broadcast and personal expression — is widening the conversation around death and mourning, two University of Washington (UW) sociologists say.

As the U.S. experiences sharp increases in drug overdoses, researchers in Delaware are using geo-mapping to look at the state, neighborhood by neighborhood, to identify “hot spots” where the use of prescription fentanyl — an extremely powerful synthetic opiate, which recently attracted national attention as the drug that caused Prince’s death — and other opiates is especially prevalent.

Community characteristics play an important role in perpetuating teen suicide clusters and thwarting prevention efforts, according to a new study by sociologists at the University of Chicago (UChicago) and University of Memphis who examined clusters in a single town.

A new Journal of Health and Social Behaviorstudy shows that access to health insurance can help hold a community together socially, and lack of it can contribute to the fraying of neighborhood cohesion.

The study, Beyond Health Effects? Examining the Social Consequences of Community Levels of Uninsurance Pre-ACA, published by the Journal of Health and Social Behavior, is an effort by researchers Tara McKay and Stefan Timmermans to “broaden the conversation” about the effects of the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

More than 5,500 sociologists will convene in Montreal this August to explore scientific research relating to social inequality and many other topics, as part of the American Sociological Association’s 112th Annual Meeting. This year’s theme, “Culture, Inequalities, and Social Inclusion across the Globe,” draws attention to the nexus of culture, inequalities, and group boundaries in order to promote greater social inclusion and resilience, collective well-being, and solidarity in Canada, the United States, and globally.